Here is the full blog planning list that Pamela and I came up with. #7 Marketing is new for those of you that read it already in the public thread on E.
1 - Domain name
vintageandmaincollective.com - voted #1 by most members
*** purchase through 1&1 then map to blog site ***
2 - Blog Platform
Wordpress.org
Price: $3-$10/month(hosting e.g. HostGator $3-6 per month)
Post Scheduler: yes
Allows our own Ads: yes
Coding: limited knowledge needed
Design: templates included
Hosting: not included (fees above)
Social Media: will auto-post from blog with plug-in
Ecommerce: Yes
Misc: multi-author/most plug-ins are free for almost any feature we would want, newsletter, etc.
Wordpress.com (hosting is free)
Price: free (Premium ($99/year-$8.25/month) - Business ($299/year-$24.92/month))
Post Scheduler: yes
Allows our own Ads: no and may show random ads on site
Coding: no knowledge needed
Design: templates included
Hosting: included
Social Media: will auto-post from blog with plug-in
Ecommerce: No
Misc: stats available/multi-author
Wordpress.com - Premium ($99/year-$8.25/month) - Business ($299/year-$24.92/month)
store.wordpress.com/plans/3 - Blog pages (buttons/tabs at top of blog)
Home (the Blog)
About Us - general descriptive paragraph, links to all member shops (with blog link option)
Shop (or Lookbooks) - stream photos and link to vintage and main team pages or to Teamvam tagged items on Etsy
Contact Us - Blog Masthead; provide an email and a contact page within the site?
News / Press - where we have been featured
Sponsor Us (May not be needed at first) (separate webpage, not a featured tab, but will need to be set up for button below ads)
4 - Social Media Links (small buttons on sidebar)
Indulgy
Facebook
Pinterest
Tumblr
Twitter
Instagram? - do we currently have this?
Google+? - to be researched
5 - SideBar Layout
Left/Right/Both? Will depend on the layout theme we choose, as we don't want it to look crowded.
Left Sidebar:
Follow Us / Connect - with all social media buttons
Search Bar
Buttons for categories - posts can be logged into each category -
DIY / Tutorials
Fashion
Recipes
Home Décor
Gift Guides
Vintage Resources (posts on brands, dating items, etc.)
Everything Else (misc.)
Right Sidebar:
Streaming photos of our top social media site, i.e. pinterest, FB?
Follow us on Bloglovin' (need to register the blog there)
TasteMaker Links and/or Ads (with sponsor us button below)
6 - Miscellaneous
Figure out comment form - the best I've seen is one where people can drop there name, email and url and type a captcha text and be done with it….also need to enable comment moderation
Posting frequency - 2-3 posts per week (12 per month) with 10 possible writers/idea contributors = 1.2 posts for each person per month
Posting themes - Such as Mid-Century Monday, Rustic Wednesday, We don't need a theme for each day of the week, or necessarily have to do it every week, but a regular theme or two, or three could help bring in viewers. These themes could also be just a small vignette in the overall blog post for the day.
How do we pay for fees? (Assuming we have no paid ads at the beginning?) - Hosting plus the domain name will cost at most $135 for the year. With 69 team members all contributing, the cost is $2 per member per year, using Wordpress.org
7 - Marketing
Blog purpose statement - The Vintage and Main Collective blog will serve as a landing page outside of Etsy for our team. By creating quality content posts that include relevant information about buying and using vintage items and eye catching photos, we will strive to gain followers that will translate to item sales for our members and create cross-promotional relationships with other vintage-themed businesses.
Target audience - Adult men and women with an interest in collecting, repurposing, and reusing the items of past decades and individuals in the entertainment and design industries who look for unique prop and design items.
Marketing techniques - All blog posts can be automatically posted on all of our other social media profiles. Our blog will become the go-to page outside of Etsy for our collective, where we can direct link to our member shops. Future marketing plans could include free and then paid advertising. We can offer free ads to other blogs at first and then begin to charge for ads when we have gained a significant amount of readers. The funds from those ads can be used to advertise on other blogs as well as pay for blog hosting if we decide to switch.
Stat / content analysis - This should be reviewed on a monthly basis. With the planned categories for our blog posts, we can compare which categories get the most views, etc. and use that as a tool to determine which content to focus on in the future. We can also use the statistics provided to determine how much traffic is coming from our social media sites, when blog posts are shared on them. A summary of the analysis should be provided to the team leaders as well.